Spring forward?

Crocus carnage: Bird?  Squirrel?  Gremlins?

Spring is never a straightforward season and March is especially unpredictable.  I had 77 degrees (25° C) two days ago, and a frost last night.  I guess I shouldn't complain too much because it snowed in Buffalo yesterday!  But complain I will, because when I came home from work last night I discovered that, just as they were about to open, some critter had nipped off nearly every bud on my 'Ruby Giant' crocus.  @$%&#!

It's been a long, cold winter and I was really looking forward to seeing 'Ruby Giant', one of my earliest and favorite spring flowers.  This is usually sold as a cultivar of the species Crocus tommasinianus, but it's actually a hybrid.  It blooms about a week later than the species but I love it for the larger, deeper purple flowers.  It's better-behaved than the species, forming a gradually expanding clump that can be divided every few years to re-plant or share with friends, and never weedily self-seeding as the species does in my garden.


Crocus 'Ruby Giant' (March 2009)

There's still my Edgeworthia chrysantha to look forward to.  The silky silver-haired buds are just beginning to open and I'm impatiently anticipating their cheery yellow color and delicious fragrance.  It's blooming rather late for me this year; in 2012, after a much warmer winter, my plant was already in full bloom in early March.


Edgeworthia chrysantha


Edgeworthia chrysantha (March 2012)

It's always interesting to see how spring proceeds at a different pace in different parts of the city.  Working downtown, I see many spring bulbs blooming a week or more before the same things bloom in my own garden in the city just 3 miles north.  This is partly because my garden is on a north-facing slope and doesn't get much sun until later in the spring, but also because the urban heat island really does keep things warmer downtown.  Here are a few crocus I spotted blooming in the Smithsonian's Butterfly Habitat Garden a couple of weeks ago.







How many plants bring us so much pleasure for so little attention, especially when there is nothing else in bloom?  Crocus often have contrasting colors and patterns on the outsides of their tepals so it's fun to view their flowers at different times of the day; not only do they open and close, but the colors can look completely different.  I took the above photos on my lunch hour, when it was sunny and (relatively) warm, then passed through the garden after work to take some more photos, and made an animated gif from one pair of photos:





This is also the time of year when I wonder what on earth people see in "ornamental" kales and cabbages.  Somebody, somewhere, was a marketing genius to get so many people to buy and plant these things.  These are among my least favorite plants; I've seen a few, very few, plantings of them that actually look nice, and that's usually during one of our warmer winters.  Come spring, even the best of them look sad and tired.  To me, they just look weird and out of place in a garden bed.


Ornamental (?) kale


Ornamental (?) kale

And of course there are begonias.  The ones indoors are putting out new growth but it will be a few more weeks before I can put them out.  This tray of begonias doesn't look terribly impressive until you consider that I left these pots outdoors until late December, covering them only with some leaves for protection, and fully expecting to find them dead after hitting a low of 20 degrees one night.  All but one of the pots is sending out new growth:


Begonias, waiting to go outside

Meanwhile I'm waiting to see which of the begonias I planted in the garden last year--if any--come back this spring.  I had one new hybrid in particular, one of my own still-unnamed creations involving hardy parents, that I was really excited about.  The leaves had a silvery pattern, with a pink sheen in the right light, and deep pink new foliage.  Here are two photos I took almost exactly a year ago, while it was still growing indoors under lights; this pair of photos shows how much the apparent color of the same plant can vary depending on lighting conditions:


Begonia hybrid (March 2014)


Begonia hybrid (March 2014)

This plant is now under mulch in my garden and may or may not still be alive.  It will be a few more weeks before I know for sure, but if it comes back this spring, I think I have something special on my hands.  I have lots of other begonias likewise being tested for hardiness, and the next few weeks should be very interesting in my garden!